


if i hurt you i'd make wine from your tears

by nonbinarywithaknife (littleboxes)



Series: dimension 20 [20]
Category: Dimension 20 (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Background Relationships, Calroy's Excellent Pants, Campaign 05: A Crown of Candy, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, First Meetings, Flashbacks, Gen, Grief/Mourning, M/M, POV Alternating, Politics, Post-Betrayal, Romantic Tension, Secrets, Sparring, completely bullshitting all of cal's backstory, in which i take the crack prompt of evil twin and make it sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-16
Updated: 2020-07-03
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:35:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24757129
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littleboxes/pseuds/nonbinarywithaknife
Summary: There’s nothing to do here but think and scheme and plan, but for the all the contingencies Cal has created over the years, he never thought on how he’d explain that one of his identical, vengeful younger brothers knocked him out, took his place, and was planning to kill the royal family because of a long-standing political resentment mixed with, likely, a personal dislike of Cal due to his acquired station. This one’s on him for sure.
Relationships: Calroy Cruller & Amethar Rocks, Calroy Cruller & Donetta Cruller, Calroy Cruller & Jet Rocks, Calroy Cruller & Ruby Rocks, Calroy Cruller/Amethar Rocks (Implied)
Series: dimension 20 [20]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1706107
Comments: 31
Kudos: 64





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> title is from paloma faith's never tear us apart and the concept is courteousy of a gaggle of horribly enabling anons

Cal keeps his mind busy by estimating how much closer he is to getting home with each step. The math takes up the energy that walking through the night doesn’t, and so he can keep himself from how much havoc his younger brother has already likely caused. It keeps him from wondering if he’s too late. If all of this was futile anyway, because truly how likely is it that all five of them made it out of Comida?

Three-thousand, five-hundred and seventy-three. It keeps him from remembering his frantic, bloody escape, from remembering the screams of Lord and Lady Swirlie, keeps him from praying that Donetta made it out because they both agreed not to wait for each other back during the last war, but knowing she would’ve done the same as he is now doesn’t stop the creeping sense of guilt.

Three-thousand, five-hundred and ninety-four. His pants- not his finest, but certainly up there; no, his finest pants are back in their rooms in Comida, and he’s unlikely to see them ever again- are torn. It’s a silly thing to care about now, creeping through the shadows of his own homeland, surrounded by enemies, but it’s another thing to think about that isn’t the cycling images of Liam’s terrified face, Amethar lying prone on the ground of the tournament, or Ruby bloody and slack on the roof of the carriage.

Cal is so terribly aware what all of the people he cares about look like on the brink of death.

If his math is right, and it is, then he’s about three hours from Castle Candy.

He has to stop his feet from slowing, because he’s three hours away from knowing. Knowing whether or not Amethar has finally fallen, knowing whether or not he’s failed them, knowing whether or not that for all his clever words and sly tricks he wasn’t there when they needed him.

But as much as he’d like to stay ignorant, he can’t. Cal can’t do his job if he doesn’t know what secrets to hide, after all. And this isn’t peasant gossip that needs to be silenced, but it is important nonetheless, so he walks on, swords steady in his hands.

He reaches the bridge that connects Dulcington and the castle just as the bulb is rising. He’s too far away yet to see the shapes of bodies that surround the castle, or to smell the tangy sourdough blood that mixes with the sugar of the fallen tartguard.

But as he approaches, he can feel that something is wrong. It’s _quiet_. Horribly, deeply, desperately quiet, as if the lack of noise has surrounded the place he’s considered his home for decades like a shroud.

He readjusts his grip, and walks forward. Hates how exposed he is on the bridge, but it’s the quickest way across. And he approaches the door.

It feels wrong, being here alone. Cal isn’t used to making his way to and from the castle like this. Openly. When he’s not in a court procession, which by its nature is a crowd he can slip into, he prefers the quieter entrances, the servants’ doors and the kitchen exits.

 _Suppose it’s only polite to knock_ , he thinks, and raps his fist against the candy-wood tiredly.

The door is opened by a trembling Licorina. She almost seems to see through him for a second, before her eyes focus and widen, comically. If Cal isn’t mistaken, she whimpers, in _fear_ , before slamming closed the door. He can hear the sounds of footsteps running away, and he takes a second to look around.

Normally he’s better than this. Smarter than this. It’s his _job_ to be aware of everything, every threat, and to eliminate it before it becomes a problem. He just- didn’t think to look at his home like an enemy stronghold.

There are the shadows of bodies, on the parapets, on the walls around the castle. Shadows on the ground of what he realizes is dried blood.

Of course. _Of course_. There’s no way he could have known that Cal was still alive, but his younger brother isn’t stupid. He would have acted as swiftly as possible before he could arrive and warn them.

Cal has just strolled up to a castle on high alert wearing a traitor’s face, and he has about three seconds to process that fact before the (his) king (best friend) opens the door, sees him, and attacks.

_Cal is a young noble from Muffinfield, technically first in line but less interested in the spotlight that the heir of a house is expected to stand under than the shadow it casts, and his family is visiting Castle Candy. His parents are stiff and proper as usual, hiding their disdain for the Rocks family’s choices under politeness and formality. With the betrothal of the heir of House Meringue to the Archmage Lazuli, it’s clear what way the political winds are blowing, and it isn’t toward further infighting. The House of Cruller isn’t fool enough to go to war against the other regions. So alliances it is._

_Cal disagrees with his parents, quietly. He admires the royal family, their insistence on alliances when it would be so easy to simply go to war with each other, especially with that conflict in the south. That, and he’s developing a taste for secrets, and nobody has secrets like the royal family._

_The grand ballroom is filled with other nobles milling around, and as his parents flit off to socialize, Cal does as well. He drifts between the different groups, greetings and names and titles rolling off his tongue easily, and he hardly notices the time pass._

_It’s a few hours later when he meets someone unexpected- the youngest Rocks heir, Amethar. He’s as loud and boisterous as Cal has heard. Normally, Cal would bow and greet as he would with any other less than politically minded important person, but… something about his wild lack of care for his station is intriguing._

_Cal straightens his pants- one of his finest pairs, if he says so himself- and walks over. “Lord Calroy Cruller, of Muffinfield, your Royal Highness” he says, bowing, and Amethar shakes his head._

_“Ah, you don’t gotta do that ‘highness’ crap, my name’s Amethar, if you wanna use it.”_

_Cal blinks. He knew that the prince wasn’t… politically minded, but this is. Blunter, than he was expecting. But he rallies, and shoots a grin at the prince. He can work with blunt._

_“Very well, Amethar. My friends call me Cal.”_

_Amethar laughs, and it’s loud and free and so much more than Cal is used to from_ anyone _, and it makes him want to know everything about Amethar. All the little movements and motions most people are too busy being self absorbed to notice, his secrets and his tells-_

_Amethar slaps him on the back, and corrals him over to a group of Dairy Islanders standing in one corner, laughing raucously. One, a small cheese cube sailor, appears to be telling a story._

_“Come on Cal, I got some people I think you’re gonna get along_ great _with,” he says._

  
  


_Cal is at Castle Candy- it seems like he is always at Castle Candy, walking through the halls, slipping through the servants, collecting gossip and secrets on his way in and out and through. There’s talk of war coming to Candia, and so his parents approved his travel here. Reluctantly, of course, always reluctantly, because the resentment has never truly faded from Muffinfield, the trust stunted by spiteful whispers, and they dislike how his focus isn’t on the home he’s set to inherit but the castle instead. He’s getting old enough now that their permission isn’t truly needed, but appearances need to be maintained. So he asks, and they permit him, and things go on._

_They’ve mentioned naming one of his siblings the heir. He hopes they will, quietly of course, because one doesn’t speak_ openly _in Muffinfield, bulb forbid it, but he knows they won’t, and that’s something that he will likely have to deal with. As much as it would be better for everyone, it wouldn’t be proper for anyone other than the firstborn to inherit, even though his brother is eager and better-suited._

_Cal is at Castle Candy, and theoretically he is here to advise his good friend Amethar on current events, but in actuality he enters a room with Queen Pamelia and leaves it the official spymaster of Castle Candy._

_And it is it’s own kind of thrill, to not be given a ceremony or an (official) title, but to have the power all the same. Amethar doesn’t know, not yet, and Cal makes his way down to the training grounds- because Amethar is always at the training grounds, would sleep there, if he knew his sisters wouldn’t drag him back up to the castle- to be the one to tell him._

_Of course, he doesn’t go there directly. He stops by the kitchens and the cellars and all the out of the way hallways that are kept clean and shining by servants, to introduce himself. To learn all of their names. He knows of most of them by appearance already, and Cal has always been a people person. Eventually he’ll know_ them _, their families and histories, their secrets and tells. But for now, he knows their names, and it’s a start._

_But he arrives at the grounds eventually, and sure enough Amethar is there._

_He’s shirtless, Payment Day- a gift from Lazuli, and one that has not gone unused, albeit mostly in practice, but anyone who knows anything that their hard-won peace will be shattered soon, especially with Joren’s rumblings in the north- in his hands, and he’s sparring with Sir Theo, Lazuli’s ward._

_Cal likes Theo, likes that when he looks at him he sees the kind of loyalty that Cal doesn’t think he’d otherwise believe exists. It’s a comfort, in his line of work, to know that some people couldn’t betray you, would break a thousand times over than betray you. It’s even better to know that that devotion isn’t directed at you, but someone you know deserves it._

_They aren’t friends, exactly, Theo too honest and too professional to be more than courteous to the good Sir Calroy, friend of the prince’s, but Cal respects him. Even trusts him. And that’s close enough._

_“Cal! C’mere, me and Theo were just finishing!” Amethar calls out, just before he twists Payment Day just so, trying to knock Theo on his back. He does, but Cal has a sneaking suspicion Theo allowed it, and apparently so does Amethar, who glares down at the knight before offering a hand for him to take._

_“C’mon Theo, I told you not to go easy on me just ‘cause I’m the prince,” he says, and Theo rises._

_“Yes, my Prince,” he says, and Cal chuckles at Amethar’s sigh. He waves him away, and Theo heads back toward the armory, leaving Cal and Amethar alone._

_Cal’s eyes track over Amethar, cataloging the way he holds Payment Day, loose but ready for attack, the way he breathes heavily but not exhaustedly, the scar on his chin from an assassination attempt as a child, the callouses on his hands- Cal knows Amethar. Not completely, yet. Cal is beginning to think it would take a lifetime to know Amethar completely, and sometimes in the dark of night, surrounded by the shadows he prefers to inhabit, he thinks he wouldn’t mind devoting his life to understanding the prince. His prince._

_But those are things one doesn’t think in the light of day. So Cal watches and learns, takes note and files away the details of Amethar, and treasures his friend._

_“Come on Cal, you’ve got time for a spar. Let’s see if you’re any good with those swords, huh?” Amethar taunts him with a friendly smile, and Cal smirks back, drawing his rapiers._

_“Oh, I couldn’t possibly keep up with you, my prince. Why I’m just a simple noble, meant for pretty words and the delicate dance of court!”_

_Amethar laughs, as he always does, because Calroy is very, very good at making Amethar laugh, and he lunges. Cal twirls away, dancing back and dodging his swings, and carefully stabbing forward only occasionally._

_Amethar has a longer reach and a stronger swing, but Calroy has_ finesse _. His strength, when ending the threat before it can realize fails, is to stab quickly and deadly. That also, isn’t an option, so instead he goes with his third option: distraction._

 _If there’s one thing Calroy has besides discretion and an intense curiosity, it’s_ flair _. And Amethar Rocks has an eye for distracting things._

_So it’s delightfully easy to feint to the side and bring his off hand around, stopping his blade a hair’s breadth from the prince’s neck, both of them breathing heavily._

_Cal smirks, and leans back a little, a gloat about to fall from his tongue, when Amethar moves, quicker than he should be able to, and then their positions are reversed. Payment Day’s blade hovers in front of Cal, and he can’t stop himself from huffing out a laugh._

_Amethar moves Payment Day after a few seconds, and helps Cal up._

_If their hands linger a few seconds longer together than is maybe necessary, well. There’s no one here but them._

Amethar presses Payment Day into Cal, cuts through the sponge and frosting with a scream of rage. For once, Cal isn’t quick enough, for once, Cal doesn’t have the words to talk him out of this, and Cal’s last thought before blacking out is that he’s going to die at the hand of his best friend. 

Cal wakes up slowly, and then all at once. The room he’s in is dark. He’s on the ground, it’s stone. His hands are shackled. He’s in the dungeons, he realizes, and finds himself smiling crookedly. How many times did he interrogate prisoners during the war, only to now find himself shackled here?

There’s no one around him. The only sound is a steady dripping from off in the distance, and Calroy finds himself alone with nothing but his thoughts once again. He wonders why he isn’t dead. Well. He’s innocent, _he_ knows that, but clearly _Amethar_ doesn’t. None of the rest could know, either. Cal knows Amethar’s rage, and knows that something truly terrible must have happened for the shine to be so thoroughly gone from his eyes. He only hopes that it isn’t one of the kids. Prays to whatever’s listening that hasn’t outlived the girls he’s watched over since childhood. 

There’s nothing to do here but think and scheme and plan, but for the all the contingencies Cal has created over the years, he never thought on how he’d explain that one of his identical, vengeful younger brothers knocked him out, took his place, and was planning to kill the royal family because of a long-standing political resentment mixed with, likely, a personal dislike of Cal due to his acquired station. That one’s on him for sure. 

So he waits. Normally he would be questioned, but given the circumstances? Alone and at war with the concord, a tragedy of some kind hanging over them? Cal tries to prepare himself for execution. (He fails, of course, but it doesn’t really matter, does it?)

Hours pass. There aren’t any windows for him to gauge the time, and who knows how long he was unconscious. Cal nods off a few times, but eventually the sound of footsteps approaches, and he stands, moves to the edge of his cell. 

It’s- not who he expected. At all. Caramelinda and Amethar. Theo and Liam. Ruby.

(Something is different about Liam. It takes Cal a few seconds before he realizes there’s no sign of Preston. It tales another few seconds for him to realize that the shadows wrap around him in a way that isn’t quite right. Like he’s a part of them, choosing to make himself visible. It’s disconcerting.)

There’s no sign of the Chancellor or Jet, and someone else. Someone new; tall, and vaguely familiar. Cal wracks his brain for a moment before he realizes- one of the Rocks cousins, Cumulous. He’d disappeared, oh, _ages_ ago, but nobody had seemed overly worried about it. There’d been whispers of magic, of the _non bulbian_ variety. Cal had assumed he was on a mission for the Archmage and filed it away with all the other tangential bits of information he tended to learn. 

Why on earth is he here, now?

Not important. At least, not right now. If Cal lives, he’ll ask him about it. 

It’s Caramelinda who approaches him. Who says the first words, harsh and cold, that make Cal’s blood chill. 

“I strongly suggest you think carefully about the next words to come out of your mouth, _Lord Cruller_ , because I find that my patience for traitors and assassins is very much _spent_. The only reason you aren’t already dead is because you are the closest link we currently have to the murderers of my daughter, and they are the only people in this country who I want dead more than you.”

Cal just stares at her, arguments pushed aside for a moment as her words register and the grief crashes over him. _Jet_.

He didn't expect his prays to be answered, exactly, but he curses whatever, if anything, is listening nonetheless. 

He thinks of her as a child, learning the sword. The way she’d begged and cajoled him into teaching her how to fight. How on the day she’d somehow managed to convince Caramelinda to allow it she’d come barging into his quarters like a miniature hurricane. And then of course, the lessons. 

How she’d swung so aggressively in a way so like her father he couldn’t help but smile. He’d listened to her desire to change the world and helped it along as much as he could, hoping that one day, she would. All that light, that fire, just- gone. 

Eighteen but still a child. Still with so much left to learn, do, to give. 

He takes a deep breath, and tells himself there will be time for grief later. Now, he looks over the gathered crowd again, and opens his mouth. 

“I know this is going to be hard to believe…”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Calroy explains. The royal family must make a decision.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> dedicated to the anon who found a class swap au post for me despite tumblr's hellish search funtion, ily <3  
> tw for a brief mention of hanging, if you wanna skip it, skip from  
> “Well,” she says. “It’s obvious what our choice is, then." to "There is silence."

Caramelinda looks down at him, the cold neutrality that she’s been wearing like armor over the rawness of her grief cracking in the face of a story so absurd that it almost seems impossibly true. 

“Your story- you truly expect us to believe, Lord Cruller,” and she doesn’t flinch when he does when she places the barrier of formality between them, because he was her husband’s best friend and a close confidant for decades, and the last time she referred to him as Lord Cruller, she was a shy new resident of the castle, newly betrothed to the Archmage. 

But right now, he is a traitor and a murderer and Caramelinda needs that barrier because she is dangerously close to crumbling into a pile of sugar crystals and grief, and there simply isn’t _time_. 

“That the traitor who attempted to murder the king of Candia, who collaborated with assassins to- to kill my daughter, who last night mustered forces against us, here, was not you, but one of your siblings. Who not only happens to be identical in appearance to you, but has just happened to have had a long-standing hatred of this family for _decades_.”

Cal looks up at her, and despite her best efforts, when she looks into his eyes, she doesn’t see a traitor. She sees a long time friend and confidant, and so when he speaks, the words cut into her already torn heart.

“No, I don’t expect you to believe it, which is why it’s extremely inconvenient that it’s the truth.”

_Calroy and Amethar are standing together on the ruined battlefield. There are troops all around them, shaken, shaking, but_ alive _. But it’s not the troops that either of them are looking at. Lazuli’s body lies on the ground, regal even in death, no sign of blood or wounds- instead, smoking scars trace the swirled marble of her hands, her face, her body._

_It’s Cal who moves first. Who gathers Lazuli into his arms and turns back toward Amethar, nodding toward the direction of their camp. Amethar is weeping, silently, and reaches out to take her body from him._

_The walk is both achingly long and terribly short. The camp is silent as they enter it, and Amethar doesn’t stop. Walks straight to the med-tent, Cal a silent shadow behind him. For once, Amethar isn’t mobbed as he goes._

_It’s once her body is lying on a cot, that Amethar breaks. His body shakes, like a mountain in a storm, and Cal tries to turn away as Amethar brokenly whispers her name._

_But as he does, a hand clings to his wrist._

_“Please- stay.”_

_And Calroy does._

Caramelinda turns away. Ruby is still staring at him, and her eyes are puffy and red and Cal wants nothing more than to wrap an arm around her shoulder and let her cry into his shoulder, but instead he kneels on the cold stone floor and hopes that when they execute him, they won’t make Ruby watch. 

_I know who my friends are._ Amethar stares at Cal, the conflict raging in his head reflected in his eyes and nowhere else. If there’s one thing Amethar Rocks knows, has always known, had always thought he would know, is _he knows who his friends are_. And yet. 

_I wonder if they’ll still call you the Unfallen after this?_

Jet is dead. One of his babies is _dead_ and he wasn’t _there_ and the one thing he’s always been able to cling to, even when the politics went over his head, was that _he knows who his friends are_. And now he can’t. 

_Do you ever wonder how those arrows reached Rococoa, so far from the battlefield?_

Amethar thinks about standing there, under the night sky. Seconds away from speaking about something he and his best friend have kept quiet under looks and glances and war-time closeness, because Amethar has a duty and Cal knows how politics work but that doesn’t make it _fair_. 

And then the dagger in his back. Poison coursing through his veins and whispered in his ear, and Amethar had realized knowing who his friends are _isn’t enough_ except now, impossibly, is a chance. 

And he _desperately_ wants to take it. To embrace Cal, to cry into his shoulder like he did after Lazuli, after Citrina, after Sapphria, after Rococoa, but Jet is _dead_ and Amethar can’t afford to do that anymore. To trust. And it _hurts_. A watersteel dagger and a trip down the castle the fast way have nothing on losing the confidence of looking at Cal and knowing, without a doubt, that he can trust him.

Caramelinda walks away, and the rest follow her. Theo stands claustrophobically close to Ruby but for once she leans into his protection rather than squirming away, and Cumulous looms like a shadow over Liam who sinks into its cover happily. 

Caramelinda and Amethar come together. 

“I know what we have to do, but can it at least wait until morning-”

“I know it will be hard, but we must keep him locked up until-”

They stop. Caramelinda stares and Amethar stares back, and if Jet weren’t dead and the castle weren’t ringing with the echoes of steps that aren’t there, they might have laughed. Amethar, suggesting the hard thing, for once. Caramelinda, choosing to cling to what she needs, for the first time in decades. 

“I- I thought- bulb, I want to believe it’s him _so badly_ , Mel, you don’t know, but I thought-”

“I know that it’s selfish, Amethar, but I can’t lose someone else, I’ve already lost so many and I don’t know how much more I can lose-”

They don’t laugh this time, but Caramelinda finds the heart to smile, faintly. A curl at the edges of her lips that fades as soon as it appears, but it’s something.

“Go ahead.”

Amethar sighs, heavy, and there’s a spark of hope in his eyes. “I- we can’t risk he’s lying. We should execute him. It’d be quick. _We should_.”

Caramelinda watches her husband be a king, and hates that this is what it took. Hates what the world has done to her family once again.

“We should. It would be irresponsible, to let him live. We couldn’t let anyone else near him, you know he has servant connections. We’d have to guard him ourselves, until we could hunt down the imposter to confirm-”

There’s a cough from behind them, and Amethar and Caramelinda turn. Cumulous stands, his staff at his side. 

“There is a woman at the door. She is claiming to be Lady Cruller? Is this helpful?”

Amethar and Caramelinda glance at each other, and Caramelinda calls for Theobald. 

“There is- there is still a risk Lord Calroy is a traitor, and we can’t trust anything his wife says,” Caramelinda tells them. 

“However… even the most talented liars can’t keep a story this complicated straight without confirmation. We’ll question her, and then…” she looks at Amethar, “come to a conclusion tomorrow.”

Donetta stands at the entrance of Castle Candy, and she is tired, and ragged, and the Swirlies are trembling behind her like frightened children and she can’t bring herself to blame them. 

She thinks about herding them through Comida in the dark, the way Lady Swirlie had picked up a brick and bashed a soldier that had pinned Donetta to the wall over the head with a firmer grip Donetta would have expected, and then a retching Donetta rather did expect. They have been through a lot. She has been through a lot. She doesn’t think about her husband’s face as he slipped from the Great Pyramid of Food, doesn’t think about how likely it is he got out. 

She simply concentrates on getting the Swirlies food and a warm place to sleep, because it is easier to concentrate on the wellbeing of people that are not herself. 

The door opens, and it is not young Licorina or another of the staff. Instead, it is the King, and the Queen, and the Lord Commander, and a strange man that seems vaguely familiar but whom she can’t quite place. They loom intimidatingly, and a cold chill runs down her back. Something has happened here, and it is _not good_. 

“Lady Cruller. I will need you to go with Sir Theobald, now,” Queen Caramelinda says, voice icy, and Donetta swallows down the worry. 

She wants to ask, “ _and why is that?_ ” and “ _for what am I being charged?_ ” but their faces are so, so carefully blank, and so she simply says, “Should I bring along Finnegan and Amelia? I’m afraid they’ve been through quite an ordeal,” and she pretends her voice isn’t wavering with an aching tiredness and fear of what she’s about to learn.

Queen Caramelinda blinks, and though her face doesn’t change, Donetta has clearly said something unexpected. 

Donetta moves slightly to the left so the aforementioned nobles are visible, and Queen Caramelinda clears her throat. 

“I… do not think that will be necessary. Cumulous, could you escort the Swirlies to the guest quarters?”

Cumulous, the strange man, nods, and Queen Caramelinda gestures them forward. Donetta watches her charges walk off, and looks to Sir Theobald. 

“Am I to be bound?”

He pulls rope from his belt, and she sighs again. The weight of the past week and a half is beginning to crash down onto her, and she breathes in to try and shore herself up. 

She is walked to the dungeons, and the cells around her are empty. She walks into the cell Sir Theobald opens and while he doesn’t shove her inside, he isn’t particularly gentle, either.

As he begins to walk away, she finds she simply can’t help herself. 

“Sir Theobald. Is- Do you know- Calroy, is he-?”

Sir Theobald stops, and does not turn around. One of his ears flicks, and she can’t read a yes or a no, and then he walks away, and Donetta tries to pull herself together and fails. 

She sits, back straight against the wall, and cries into her sleeves. She will make it through this. She _will_. 

“I hate to admit it, but his story makes sense- it’s unbelievable, but it makes _sense_.”

“More sense than him lying to you for two decades, I mean, sure, even if he’s power hungry or whatever, _two decades_ of lying? That would wear down anybody.”

“I- I want to believe him so bad, but. I just-”

“I know.”

“I spoke to Lady Donetta. She knows nothing specific, but confirms Calroy has identical siblings, said the same he did. Apparently they’ve dined together before, at High Frosting’s Eve, but apparently not often because of some friction about the succession process.”

“Calroy did say his brother was jealous-”

“Didn’t the fake Calroy-”

“We still don’t know for sure that one was fake-”

“-the _fake Calroy_ say he’d killed the Swirlies? They’re clearly not dead.”

“Okay- yeah, that’s weird.”

“And from what Cumuous got from them-”

“They were not very helpful.”

“-probably because they’re traumatized and you are very intimidating?”

“...true.”

“- _from what_ Cumulous got from them, it matches what Calroy described as his exit from Comida.”

Caramelinda looks at the rest of them, Amethar, Theo, Cumulous, Ruby, Liam. They’re hopeful and scared and suspicious, and she knows if she looked in a mirror she’d see the same. 

“Well,” she says. “It’s obvious what our choice is, then. Do we trust him, based on what evidence we have, or do we go the route of caution, and hang him on the gallows?”

There is silence. The absence of Jet rings loud as a memory of their last choice to trust. But-

Cumulous has no stake in these proceedings.

Theobald and Liam will follow their lead.

Amethar doesn’t want to lose more family.

Ruby doesn’t want to lose her sister _and_ her uncle.

And Caramelinda is so, _so_ tired of _losing_.

They don’t speak, but the conclusion is reached anyway. Amethar walks first to the dungeons, and he unlocks the cell door as Calroy watches keenly. 

He stands in the doorway for a second, uncertain, before dragging Calroy into a bone crunching hug.

(Later, when Calroy learns exactly how and how much damage his brother has wrought, he will be shocked into a long silence at the ocean of trust that action displayed. But it isn’t later, it’s now, and Calroy wraps his arms around his friend. Neither stops themselves from crying.)

“I’m so glad I didn’t lose you too, Cal,” Amethar says. 

“You can’t get rid of me that easily,” Cal says, smiling through the tears.

As Amethar disentangles himself, Ruby runs forward and wraps her arms around him. 

“I’m so glad you’re not a traitor,” she cries, and he holds her in a hug less crushing but just as warm as Amethar’s. 

Ruby lets go eventually, and he steps out of the cell. He opens his mouth to say- he’s not sure, exactly, but the relief and fear and grief and hope he’s feeling are all very overwhelming- when his head snaps up sharply at a ringing voice that he recognizes. He hadn’t let himself hope-

“ _Calroy_.”

Donetta, radiant, standing tall despite tear tracks down her face, despite the clear raggedness of her clothing, stands in the doorway. 

“Oh, my darling, I-” he is cut off by his wife tackling him into the bars of his cell. 

There are no words for their reunion, and Cal pays no attention to the irony. Their actions have always meant more to each other anyway, with each so comfortable working in half-truths and lies.

Later, Calroy will sit with his family, not by blood, but by choice, and they will tell him everything that has happened, and he will grieve with them, and the boundary lines of King and Queen and Brother and Sister and Knight and Spymaster and Uncle will blur, and it will be painful and wonderful, but none of that will matter, because they are together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cumulous does not know where the guest quarters are. also, just picture cumulous, candy terminator and a pair of absolutely _ragged_ swirlies  
> oh and here's a bit i cut out cause it didn't fit but im proud of it  
> (The trust of twenty years of friendship can get you _everything_ from Amethar-
> 
> The trust of twenty years of solid advice can get you a _lot_ from Caramelinda-)

**Author's Note:**

> listen. brennan isn't allowed to make it canon that calroy has/had EIGHT identical siblings and NOT expect me to write an alternate universe where our calroy is the good twin and all the other ones are evil. i mean come on. it's RIGHT THERE.


End file.
